Women of Sand and Myrrh

by Hanan al-Shaykh

  My aunt Nasab captured my attention more than my mother; her powerful voice, which had a huskiness about it, her gold teeth, her deep colouring, her gold heavy-looking neck chain, the henna reddening and blackening her hands and feet, everything about her was exaggerated; she put kohl on her eyes and the line along her lower lid was as broad as a finger; under her head cover she wore her hair in two black plaits which she sometimes untied; then she combed her hair with her fingers and replaited it, and I never once saw a single white hair among the black. She would sigh and say, ‘Tamr, God is above and understands everything. Praise be, He is all-knowing. That Awatef’s innards were tangled, and why, He knew. But He tries human beings and examines their faith. By God and the Kaaba, when I saw her come out as beautiful as the full moon, with huge eyes, looking at each of us in turn, and her guts hanging out on to her skin, I said, “O Lord, I’m not going to complain or abandon my faith. I want to love and cherish her as long as there’s life in her.” Darling Awatef. She was all eyes, eyes that took in everything. Sita said to me, “You moved when God was breathing life into Awatef.” I realized that this was true: while I was asleep my feet would change places with my head.’

  I noticed that the water had almost boiled dry and I was still standing right next to the whistling kettle. I poured what was left of the water over the tea bags and sugar, put the pot on a tray with glasses and took it into the sitting-room. My mother was watching television, although the picture was unsteady. I couldn’t imagine that I’d be able to sit there as I had done before, content to drink tea and talk to the visitors who would surely come. The sunset call to prayer was stamped on my memory among the glasses of tea and the conversations, the noise of the television and the children playing, and the women praying wherever they happened to be.

  Now I sat down at a distance from my mother and aunt, pretending to read, then pretending to write figures on a piece of paper, deliberately making a noise as I did it: the rent, the running costs of the workshop, the licence, the cost of bringing seamstresses from the Philippines.

  My mother addressed my aunt: ‘Nasab. When Tamr was in London someone must have put something in her food or drink; or perhaps the Devil appeared in the shape of a nurse or a doctor and whispered evil thoughts to her. They’re idolators and evildoers over there, and they want to make the believers turn away from their faith so that they can increase their own numbers. And that foreign girl next door – the Virgin Mary or whatever her name is …’

  I didn’t laugh, because she never remembered the name of our neighbour Mary, and I didn’t raise my eyes from the piece of paper.

  My aunt replied, defending her, ‘I understood that her name was Maryam. And I swear by God and the Qur’an that she came to see me in hospital one day.’ She stretched her hand down to her healthy leg and went on. ‘May this leg of mine become like the bad one if I’m not speaking the truth. I swear to you, Taj, she talked to me for ages, and she spoke in Arabic. “Sitt Nasab,” she said, “My husband’s not here. He’s in a country a long way off, and I just have my children with me. I’ll take Tamr on the bus to see the Queen’s palace, Oxford Street, Big Ben, the Zoo.” And I was nodding my head, making out that I was sometimes unconscious, not always listening, not talking much.

  ‘Tamr had melted the foreigner’s heart, but as my own heart softened towards Tamr, because I saw her crying, I muttered to myself, “Lord deliver me from the devils of the cold and the rain; if anyone sees Tamr or she gets into trouble, Ibrahim’s family and the sheikh’s family will come buzzing around like bees,” so I said aloud, “No. No.” ’

  My mother beat her chest and said in a quarrelsome voice, ‘Let me understand this. Let me understand it. What turned her mind upside down, and who put two bagsful of tears in her eyes? When they kidnapped her son, she didn’t let out a whimper.’ My aunt interrupted: ‘Didn’t you see her? When they stole Muhammad she was as white as a ghost.’ She sighed and drummed on her chest with her hand. ‘I’m telling you the truth. For twenty days and twenty nights when I was in hospital Tamr didn’t leave me. She was always on the sofa or at the window. When Awatef came they went to Oxford Street and bought perfumes and material, and I said to her, to Awatef, “You and your husband are free to do as you please but Tamr has to stay with me. I want to see her on that sofa.” ’

  I found myself listening intently but I didn’t comment on their conversation as I normally did, or shout when my mother said, ‘Rashid was right all along. The Institute has turned her head, and the Lebanese teacher, and the cars. She needs a home of her own and children.’ Then she looked in the direction of the door, afraid that Batul, who was in the kitchen, would hear her, and whispered, ‘I’d like to live with her and relieve Rashid of the responsibility. It’s true that Rashid – God grant him a long life – doesn’t ask for a thing from us. He has a sense of duty towards the family, but what concerns him is his sister’s future. Nobody believes that Rashid’s only my stepson, and in the past I’ve bitten his mother and she’s spat in my face. He acts as if I were his own flesh and blood.’

  My aunt listened thoughtfully, then remarked, ‘God bless Rashid, and God bless us. English people are born and die strangers to their families. When the English doctor found out how we live, how we don’t abandon members of our families, he said to me, “You’re more civilized than we are.” I asked the English girl Maryam who was there with Tamr – my dear Tamr who stayed by my side and never ever left me – what the doctor meant and she explained the word “civilization” to me in Arabic: it means progress and modern life, aeroplanes and machinery. I said to her, “Tell the doctor I’ve got faith in aeroplanes because I’ve travelled in them, and in steamships and cars for the same reason. But I don’t believe that a person’s landed on the moon and I wouldn’t even if I saw a million pictures of it. How could a man stand on it when it’s the size of a loaf of bread or a water melon, without it falling down? And tell the doctor that I don’t believe the earth rotates and is like an apple. If the earth went round, this bed of mine and that table over there would change places. Tell him these are fantasies. Or perhaps it’s better not to make him angry so tell him my aunt believes in the radio and the television; they’re excellent and they help to pass the time – even though when we listened to the radio for the first time we said it was the Devil, and when we watched television we said it was the Devil’s grandfather.” ’

  I put up my hand to touch my hair, all that was left to me of London. A stylist there had cut my long straight hair and given me a light perm. London, with its shops, the white bathroom, the clean hospital corridors; the green expanses there reminded me of the gardens they tell us are in Paradise with rivers flowing underground. I loved the rain, the red buses, tea and biscuits in the cafés, and the respect shown me by every man I met: the air steward, the nightporter at the hotel, the doctors at the hospital, the taxi drivers.

  In London I decided that when I went back to the desert I’d enrol at the Institute and study. Learning to recite the Qur’an with the teacher of religion wasn’t everything. I would take English lessons too so that I could reply when someone spoke to me. I couldn’t say a single word as it was, and I couldn’t fill up the forms at the customs even in Arabic. I pictured myself sitting in front of the television explaining to Batul and my aunt and my mother what was really going on in the foreign films: the woman whom Mr Rochester kept shut away in Jane Eyre was his mad wife, not his mother.

  3

  The following day I collected the divorce certificate from the sheikh. It was as if a chicken had taken a pen and scratched its name. When I reached the government building I said to Said, ‘Ask the official to come to me here. I’ll wait in the car.’ Said didn’t show any surprise. ‘One moment, Aunt Tamr,’ he said, getting out of the car.

  Although I stayed in the car my heart was knocking against my chest just as it had done a few days before when I went into the bank. On that occasion I’d known that what I was doing was wrong; I was probably the first wom
an to cross its threshold, but women went into shops and stores and bought things. Who was going to stop me? The thick black cover was over my face. Through it I could see all the eyes, all the bodies. Nobody said to me, ‘You’re not allowed to come in,’ and I went forward confidently and handed the man a paper. He went away for a little while, then came back and asked me if I had my identity card with me. I said yes, thinking a few seconds and this tension will be over, but then he told me that my money was in Muhammad’s name. I gasped. ‘He’s my son,’ I cried. ‘He’ll have to come and see us himself,’ said the official. I went out of the bank, wondering why Rashid had entered my money in the name of my son who’d been five years old when my father had died and left it to me.

  The next day when my son came, I made sure that he had his identity card. Without delay I wrapped my abaya around me and went towards the car. His astonished voice made me halt. ‘What are you doing, mother?’ Embarrassed, I answered, ‘I’ll come with you and wait for you in the car.’ In even greater surprise, he replied, ‘You’re coming with me to the bank? And waiting in the car? Have you gone mad?’

  I didn’t argue with him and went back into the house with my hand on my heart. Twenty-five thousand, to be handed over to my son who wasn’t even sixteen years old. I didn’t take my hand off my heart until he came back with the money in a paper bag.

  The same sensations had returned the first time I came to this building to apply for a permit for a workshop and hairdresser’s. Silence hung over the place, and when I approached an official sitting at a table he appeared tongue-tied and waved me over to another table. From there I was passed from one person to another, and I realized that by coming into a government building I had made another big mistake. But it wasn’t forbidden, and why should it be? The black cover was on my face, the black wrap around me decorously hiding my charms, and the hem of the dress I wore underneath it trailed behind me on the floor. I knew that Rashid would be furious. He’d kill me. Too bad. I returned to the first table. The dejection which had taken hold of me was transformed into a kind of daredevil courage. ‘My name is Tamr daughter of al-Tawi,’ I declared, not caring if anyone heard me or not. ‘I want to open a dressmaking business and a ladies’ hairdresser’s.’ The man answered in spite of himself, as if he had come under my sway: ‘The dressmaking business is possible. Not the hairdresser’s. Are you married?’ ‘Divorced.’ ‘Get a certificate of your divorce, then let your guardian bring us the lease and we’ll examine the premises, and afterwards if everything’s all right we’ll give you a permit.’ Looking down at the ground, he went on, ‘But next time, stay in the car and send your driver, and someone will come out to the car with the papers for you to sign.’ I thanked him and left. A certificate of my divorce? I hadn’t seen such a thing when I divorced my first husband or my second and I didn’t remember signing my name on a single official document in my life.

  I ran away from my first husband Ibrahim one hot noonday, with my son Muhammad in my arms. My husband’s family were asleep because their stomachs were heavy with food. I was divorced by my second husband early one morning. I woke up at the sound of knocking on my bedroom door which was locked from the inside. As I hurried to open it I remembered the sheikh, my husband, saying to me the day before, ‘Lock your door. My friends are sure to get drunk and one of them wants to see if it’s true that you look like Nabila Ubaid. You know the wicked notions they get.’

  I looked like a film star? I’d examined myself that night. Brown skin, large eyes, small nose, even white teeth, average height; my body wasn’t bad except that my bottom was too fat.

  I opened the door hastily and found the maid outside, holding Muhammad’s hand. I smiled at him and held him. ‘Good morning. Good morning, Hammouda.’ The maid said shortly, ‘Your brother Rashid’s downstairs.’ This astonished me, and I wondered what could have happened. Batul wasn’t due to have her baby for another month. Ibrahim’s family must want my son. I flung my dress over my silk nightdress and rushed downstairs.

  Rashid greeted me angrily, but with some malicious satisfaction in his voice: ‘Congratuations. The sheikh’s divorced you.’

  I didn’t believe what I was hearing. The previous day the sheikh had calmed me down when he saw me crying, terrified by Ibrahim threatening to take Muhammad away from me. He’d said, ‘Nobody’s going to harm a fingernail of yours while you’re my wife.’

  Confronted by the news that he was divorcing me, I felt surprise and curiosity, and didn’t know whether I was glad or sorry. I learnt from the maid as she helped me to pack that she’d been woken up by the sheikh shouting. He was very drunk but she’d seen him hammering at my bedroom door. When the door remained closed, he’d fetched a revolver and started trying to break in. He’d had to be restrained by the driver and the servants, and even then he wouldn’t give in until he’d sworn to divorce me, asked for two witnesses and done it. No one believed me when I swore by God and his prophets that I’d heard nothing but the roaring of the air-conditioner, although it was rare for me to sleep so deeply.

  After a few days in Rashid’s house I realized that I was pleased to be divorced. The sheikh was a drunkard, with a bottle to hand twenty-four hours a day. He would sit all day long, never rising except to shake hands with a visitor, drinking glass after glass until his head slumped forward and he slept. He would wake up in the afternoon sometime and call until I came to him. He smelt strongly of drink and I would remind myself that I just had to bear it for a little while; soon he would leave me. Sometimes he would fall soundly asleep when he’d barely climbed on top of me. This delighted me and I longed for it to happen every time, for I found the smell of drink hard to take. I knew that my aunt and my brother and all of them were happy that I’d married into a big house that was like a palace and had servants and cars and drivers. The sheikh was an important person, and he was affectionate and generous; presents and money, like drink, were always available and he distributed them lavishly. He treated me like a daughter although he was no more than fifteen years older than me. Every day he asked me, ‘Have you had something to eat or drink? Thanks be to God. Has Muhammad eaten? Thanks be to God. Has he had plenty? Thanks be to God.’ Muhammad was my son and thanks be to God the sheikh rarely saw him, and even when he did see him he didn’t play with him.

  When I told Rashid all of this he said, ‘What business is it of yours? It’s not you doing the drinking, is it?’ But coming back to my brother’s house, living among them all, me being unmarried, was hard on Muhammad. I began to sell my jewellery and clothes to the neighbours at low prices so that I could buy Muhammad what he wanted. He was always telling me that his cousins were much better off than he was and instead of studying and doing his homework he would deliberately set out to annoy me. I knew that my separation from Ibrahim had changed him into a nervous, unpredictable boy, uncertain which of us to go to. When he was staying with me he rejected me and the life he lived with me, and asked to go back to his father; two days after he’d gone, Ibrahim would contact Rashid and say that Muhammad wanted me. On one such occasion Rashid came with me to fetch Muhammad. The boy looked happily out of the car window until we’d been travelling for a few minutes, then a scowl decended upon his face and he didn’t say another word until he asked his uncle to stop the car because he felt sick. He got out and ran off and up on to the dunes where he sat crying forlornly. He refused to come down and began to throw sand at me and Rashid, but he wouldn’t go back to his father’s house.

  4

  Rashid agreed with my plan for a workshop once he’d read the permit and saw that it was registered in my name. He agreed to bring in the Filipino seamstresses on condition that Batul came in as a partner but didn’t visit the place, and the Filipinos slept in the workshop and didn’t cross the threshold except in my company. My aunt trilled, I jumped for joy, Batul cheered, and my mother wept.

  I didn’t pay any attention to the fact that my mother went on crying and her tears turned into a convulsive fit of sobbing. My tho
ughts revolved happily, busy with images of the workshop: the reception, the sewing room, mirrors, cupboards, the fashion photographs in Suha’s magazines, the Filipino seamstresses – one of whom would have to be a hair stylist. I had an exact idea of the table and chair I would have to work from, just like I’d seen in the shops. And all the big families and the sheikhs’ wives would be my customers.

  Between her sobs my mother said, ‘I swear, I carried you in my womb and gave birth to you but you cling to Nasab. It’s as if she’s a hyena who’s pissed on you and got power over you. Four years I was pregnant with you …’

  She cradled her head in her arms and I didn’t know how to answer her. I knew she wouldn’t stop crying for days and nights as usual, and I was scared that she’d revert to her raving and chattering, losing her mind as she always did when she became very angry. I approached her and spoke soothingly as I would have done to a child. ‘No, mother. I swear by my son, you’re wrong. I listen to you and I do what you want. You know Rashid and his stubbornness, but my aunt has an influence over him and she makes him embarrassed. You know he owes her a lot. She’s like his mother.’ Tentatively I touched her red plait. I saw the little white hairs at the roots. Her head appeared small. Even the henna didn’t colour the original red of her hair or the striking whiteness of the palms of her hands. I stared at the fine blue veins in her neck and caught sight of one of her bare feet, small and slender, looking as if it were made of glass.

  I pulled her hand away from her red face. When she lifted her green eyes to me they were swollen. As usual when I noticed her colouring, I thought that she couldn’t possibly be my mother. ‘God forbid,’ I uttered involuntarily, warding off this notion of mine, and my mother cried out, ‘Even you, Tamr, say “God forbid”. By God, I’m not mad!’